We use in-depth, wide-ranging, long form interviews where the subjects are allowed to tell their own stories in their own way. Through those interviews we explore work as a calling, as opposed to simply a way of making a living and keeping the bills paid.

Career choices bookend our lives.

As kids, we think about all the things we want to do when we grow up. As mature adults, many of us look back on our lives and wonder where the time went. What might we have done if we could do it all over again? At these life bookends, we free ourselves from the constraints of what’s reasonable and practical and achievable. Between the bookends, we often drift in and out of work which might make practical sense but perhaps little else other than that. The money working in the salt mine may be good, or steady, or both, so we stick with it for thirty-five or forty years so we can finally settle down to do our real life’s work. We hope.

When we look across the landscape, however, we do find people who have what appear to be dream jobs — the very job we might wish we could do if we could turn back the clock. These people didn’t wait for one life to end and another to begin before they pursued their dream. Often they never thought of doing anything else. Now they are actually doing that job and will happily do so for the rest of their lives. While luck rarely has anything to do with it, they often readily admit they feel truly lucky to be living their dreams as they do.

For others, their calling is goal driven: to compete in the Olympic Games or go into space, for instance — goals which took decades to achieve. Once that goal has been accomplished, however, how do their lives evolve from that point? Did achieving that dream change them? How did they decide what to do next? Has the transition been successful? Did achieving that big goal help them later in life? Are they happy now?

For still others, it was a mid-life pivot that they either chose for themselves or was dictated by some fateful event in their lives. What was the event that precipitated the change? How did they get from their old life to the new one? Were they afraid? Did their dream job work out as they had planned? Is their new life all they thought it would be?

How did we get here?

As The WorkNotWork Show’s writer, producer and host, it started out as a personal journey to find out what I wanted to do next, before life truly got away from me, this time for good. Like those bookend periods, I temporarily freed myself from the constraints of practicality and common sense. I found people doing amazing jobs and asked them to tell me their story and I found each of them truly fascinating. People are natural storytellers when talking about their own lives and I was completely captivated by what I heard.

These life stories have all the elements of a great novel or movie: triumph, heartbreak, good characters, villains, surprises, persistence in the face of overwhelming odds, amazing luck, dedication, plot twists and the nobility of good hard work. Unlike the rest of us, however, these people don’t daydream of doing anything else. Their work, succinctly stated, isn’t work at all. Thus, The WorkNotWork Show, the show dedicated to telling the stories of these amazing individuals and the work that they love to do.

Some will be household names and others will not be familiar. In some cases, they’ve had a lot of financial success, and in others, money was never the objective in the first place. Some will talk about jobs you might consider for yourself. Others will talk about jobs that you would not think of doing in a million years. But they are all fascinating stories I believe are well worth your time.

What you can expect.

The WorkNotWork Show is a podcast launched in June of 2016 and employs the long format interview — we let the interview subjects talk for whatever length of time they want. We have kicked off with three great subjects: Mark Langille, drone pilot, entrepreneur and industry advocate; Michael C. Smith, Olympic decathlete, investment banker and high performance coach; and a three part episode with Dave Thomas, coder, author, teacher and publisher emeritus of The Pragramatic Bookshelf. We look forward to re-introducing them — and introducing future guests — in more detail here in the companion publication on Medium.

We dedicate one entire episode to a single individual’s story. If necessary, we break an episode into multiple parts so that each fits neatly into a typical urban commute or power walk. In some cases, we complement the audio podcast with additional material of interest to the audience and publish it here on Medium and our other supported platforms.

We do not believe in compromising the quality of the episodes in the interest of meeting artificial production deadlines. New episodes may come fast and furious for a time and at other times they may take a while. As each new episode is produced, however, you can be assured nothing has been spared in producing the best possible listening experience. To be alerted as each new interview is available, follow or subscribe on your platform of choice: iTunes, Fireside, Twitter, Medium, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn or Instagram.

Welcome and thank you.

We are thrilled to have you as a member of The WorkNotWork Show audience, and truly hope that you feel its worth your time and your attention. If you like what you hear, please rate us on iTunes, it really helps.

We also look forward to hearing from you and talking with you. We also hope the information may prove helpful and an inspiration to you in perhaps finding some new path for your professional life.

The WorkNotWork Show: the show about people who have turned their passion into their profession.